


About Ted

by calenlily



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s02e11 Ted, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-24
Updated: 2020-08-24
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26075503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: After they uncover the truth about Ted, the Scoobies are quick to dismiss the whole incident, like because he turned out to be an evil robot Buffy’s actions were totally vindicated, no harm no foul.For Buffy herself, it’s not so easy to move past.
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 49





	About Ted

The night after the truth comes out about Ted, while Buffy isn’t on house arrest anymore, she’s still too shaken to patrol. She spends the evening watching old movies with her equally shaken mother and then calls it an early night.

Sleep proves elusive, however. She’s spent at least an hour restless and wishing her brain would turn off already when Angel shows up at her window.

“Angel! ...Should you be out?” Her pleasure at seeing him turns to unease in a flash. Bad enough that Giles got himself hurt in patrolling for her; the last thing she wants is more people putting themselves at risk on account of her indisposition, and Angel is still injured. (Though it’s an encouraging sign that he’d scaled the tree outside her room as stealthily as ever.)

He brushes off her concern with a slight smile. “I’m fine. I may not be up for pitched battles any time soon, but I can hold my own. I got worried when you didn’t come around. Are _you_ okay?”

Right, she’d been due to change the bandages on his hand again. Not that she has any doubt he could manage it on his own, but that assurance does nothing to relieve the weight of guilt in the pit of her stomach. She can add “bad girlfriend” to “bad daughter” and “bad Slayer” on the list of this week’s failures.

“Peachy,” she chirps, assaying a smile.

“No, you’re not.” The look he gives her seems to see right through her, and she wonders why she even bothers trying to hide.

“You can always tell,” Buffy grumbles. “How come you can always tell?”

Angel shrugs. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you pick up a few things. But you’ve always worn your emotions very close to the surface; you’re not exactly hard to read.”

She frowns. “So you’re saying I’m transparent?”

“I’m saying you feel things deeply and genuinely. It’s one of the things I like about you; there’s no pretense to you.” He sits down on the edge of her bed, lays his good hand against her cheek and she can’t resist leaning in to the contact. “Buffy, what’s wrong?” His voice is gentle but firm, making it clear that he will not be put off by further deflection.

She pulls herself into a sitting position and hugs her knees to her chest. “I killed him,” she chokes out, and with the admission of that truth, all the emotions she’s been bottling up come uncorked at once. The words come out in a torrent as she breaks down in tears. “Only not really, but I didn’t know that then – I didn’t know and I killed him – he threatened me and I just got so mad – and, and then he came back, and....”

“ _Buffy_. Stop. Breathe.” Angel draws her into his arms. “I’ve got you,” he soothes. “Just relax, let it out. I’ve got you.”

He waits patiently while she sobs herself out against his chest. “I’m sorry,” she sniffles once she can breathe steadily enough to speak again.

“It’s okay. You’re okay,” he says gently. “Now, start from the beginning, because you weren’t making any sense before. What happened? Who is ‘he’?”

“Ted.”

“Your mother’s boyfriend?”

“Uh-huh.” She nods. “Only he wasn’t the real Ted, he was a robot. But I didn’t know, I thought he was a person. And he threatened me, he hit me, so I hit him, and I swear it was an accident but he fell down the stairs, and ... and he didn’t get up, and he wasn’t breathing or anything. And Mom couldn’t even look at me, and the police came and asked questions and they said they believed me but they obviously didn’t. And then the next day he came back, he knocked me out and locked me in my room,” and here Angel clutches her closer and she can feel the hint of a growl vibrating through his chest; she lets his protective fury warm her but does not allow herself to be distracted from her recounting of events, “and when I came to he was threatening my mom, but he’d gone all glitchy and his skin was peeling back to the wires underneath, so I killed him for real – or, well, disassembled him – and it turned out he had four dead wives in his basement and he was gonna make Mom number five. I swore there was something fishy about him from the start, but no one believed me. Which, I mean, wasn’t entirely their fault, ‘cause he was giving them drugged food so they’d trust him, but still. But the guys couldn’t believe I’d really just killed a human, so they started researching after the – the accident. And since he turned out to be an evil robot they’re acting like I was vindicated and everything’s fine.”

Angel winces. “I did it to you too, Buffy, I assumed you were overreacting. I’m sorry. You have good instincts; trust them.”

“But that’s the thing!” she bursts out. “I wasn’t thinking about that at all when I fought him. I didn’t do it because I thought there was something off about him, I was just so mad and so scared – he’d read my diaries, about being the Slayer, he said he was gonna have me committed – I wasn’t thinking about my strength at all, I thought he was a person and yet I was looking for an excuse to fight him.”

He puts his hands on her shoulders and pulls away enough to meet her eyes intently. “He was threatening you; you protected yourself. That’s only natural. I wish you didn’t have to go through that experience, but I’m glad you didn’t hesitate to defend yourself. Don’t ever be ashamed of that. It was an accident; you said so yourself.”

“But....” She sighs heavily. “Killing him was an accident, I never meant to do that, but I wanted so badly to hurt him. I don’t like knowing I have that in me.”

“It’s not a comfortable feeling,” Angel acknowledges. “But I meant what I said about your instincts. You might not have been consciously aware that he wasn’t human, but I think something deeper in you likely recognized a threat and guided you to treat him as one.”

Buffy wrinkles her nose. “Now you sound like Giles.”

“Giles is wise.” A quirked smile, and then he says seriously, “Buffy, you’re not a killer.”

It’s what she desperately wants to hear, and perhaps that’s why it’s hard to trust the reassurance. “How can you be sure?”

“Because I know you. And because you’re this torn up just by the thought of it.”

“I guess.” She ducks her head, fidgeting with a loose strand of hair. “What really gets me is the way the guys have just brushed it off like it doesn’t matter. ‘Oh, it turns out he wasn’t actually human, so no harm no foul.’ As if that makes it all better. As if it changes what I did in the moment, or makes it any easier to live with myself. They’re all acting like it might as well not have happened!”

“To them, it didn’t.”

She looks up at him curiously. “What do you mean?”

“It’s hitting you differently because you’re the one who lived it. Your friends didn’t have that experience, so to them it was just another scary situation, another near miss,” he explains. “Would you really want them to be able to understand?”

Buffy shudders. No, she wouldn’t wish walking in her shoes on anyone, and her friends have already lost so much of their innocence on her account. It may frustrate her sometimes when they fail to comprehend the realities of her life, but no amount of understanding could be a worthy trade for dragging them further into her darkness. “No, I guess ‘evil robots, just another Tuesday night in Sunnydale’ is probably for the best,” she admits. She rests her head against his shoulder, letting herself draw strength from his embrace. “Angel, thank you.”

“For what?”

“For listening. For understanding the things I can’t expect anyone else to.”

He presses a kiss to the top of her head, and his arms tighten around her. “It’s what I’m here for. You have so much to carry; you shouldn’t have to do it alone.”


End file.
